licorice

Granted, as a soccer fan and craft beer geek it’s not easy to find a good beer, not to mention craft beer, at one of the 36 Bundesliga stadiums in Germany. Aside from a few exceptions Pilseners of major sponsoring breweries rule the ranks of the stadiums and even the booths on the sports grounds. So unless you’re tailgating with a great craft beer in hand, you most likely have to suck it up and hand over the big bucks for a mass-produced beer!

It has become somewhat of a ritual for hubby and me to go to the stadium with a couple craft brews in the pockets, taking a picture at the train stop while waiting for the S-Bahn, toasting to a good game and get on the train with our fellows 🙂

It wasn’t any different at last nights derby game – SG Eintracht Frankfurt – FSV Mainz. We decided on the Palor and Colonia by the local Frankfurt microbrewery Braufactum.

Palor is an English style Pale Ale brewed with Cascade and Polaris hops. Since we drank from the bottles [and you can’t taste color] I’m skipping the appearance description.

Cascade and Polaris give the Palor a distinct aromatic character with fruity, minty, slightly citrusy aroma notes. Good medium body and carbonation. Bold flavor of sweet malt, caramel, spices, and bread, leading to a dry finish. Actually a little too dry for my taste.

Colonia is not the typical Kölsch as you may think [and I thought] from the name, but a “Rhenisch-style bitter-beer” brewed with Saphir hops.

Bitter-beer? I must admit, I’ve never heard of this style but reading about the style it’s like an “Ur-Kölsch”, basically the ancestor of the Kölsch as we know today. That explains why I didn’t like it as a Kölsch. Although the aroma had notes of flowers and hops, its flavor was sweet with notes of malt and straw with a very bitter dry finish.

Bitter-beers are a top fermented ales, with a flavor probably something between Altbier and Kölsch, which makes it relatively quaffable but with a high malt content, which makes the beer sweeter.

We also met up with our friend Jörn, a SGE and beer fan, who is a local [craft beer] restaurant owner and one of the founders of the Craft Beer Zentrum!

His drink of choice last night was Pax Bräu’s BlackGold Lakritz [licorice] Oatmeal Stout. Great choice – says the one who doesn’t like licorice!! … no sarcasm intended

I was positively surprised. Thanks for sharing by the way.

It poured pitch black with a small white head – at that point we were equipped with plastic cups! The aroma was of roasted malts, hints of dark chocolate mixed with licorice. The taste was smooth also with roasty malts and slightly salty licorice; light bodied yet creamy. For me the licorice was overpowering the oatmeal though.

With the last sip we headed towards the gate and our seats and back into the Pilsener-emporium, ready to see our team take on the Mainzers!

If you care, we [Eintracht] won 2-2… it should have been 4-2 though!!!